I'm experimenting with ESXi on my home computer, but keep running into the "No Network Adapters" error, which I understand is because the 5.5 default drivers don't support the Intel I218-V on my Asus H97M-Plus motherboard.

I've looked through these forums and others, and understand that I can use the ESXi Customizer v2.7.2 to add the Intel drivers. The latest version I can find in a .VIB file is net-e1000e-2.3.2.x86_64 which don't seem to work. The latest version I can fine on Intel's site is e1000e-3.0.4. I've tried using the Customizer to insert that version without success.

Also, I'm trying to run ESXi from a bootable USB drive which I create from the ISO using Rufus-1.4.9

Perhaps a follow up. I'm trying to find a way to convert the Intel driver into a VIB. Is there a way to do that outside of Linux or ESXi? Has anyone had luck with the Intel I218-V? Is there a repository of customized ISOs I could browse?

This is madness. We have piles of NICs here, including ones with 8039 / 8139 chipsets, 3Com cards etc. etc. These are really really common cards, and not having drivers built into the install pack is a gross oversight that fundamentally undermines the idea of demo software. I have the morning to investigate using this software: so far I have wasted most of it endlessly rebooting the installer to be told "No network card". I have never, ever, come across on O/S before that doesn't support these basic, almost universal cards. Another case of a company becoming too big & successful to understand the needs of it's customers?

I don't know the reason behind this, but vmware are deprecating drivers for older hardware with every release. I suspect it has to do with keeping the install base small.

They do maintain the hardware compatibility list, that's their take it or leave it contract. I couldn't say it's inaccurate, however I have a network card that's supported and it's not in that list. I needed other sources to make sure I don't do the wrong purchase.

The product being free of charge, most probably we can complain at our own expense It's kinda the right thing.

in a previous post I mentioned that the samsung ssd was visible. Well, I didn't get to boot it after a successful instalation of esxi on it and from that point on the motherboard started acting strangely, not booting from anything. Had to run the jumper bios reset.

After that I installed anew from the stock iso onto a usb stick and was able to boot from it. No storage adapters were visible though, therefore my samsung ssd was not present in the list.

Nice workaround - and it's good the rest of the mobo is supported. Not sure I want to pick up a separate NIC, though. Maybe I'll hold out to see if a different/newer version of the I218-V driver works, or if anyone else has ideas. I miss not having VMware, but Hyper-V is working well enough for my needs, and I can spare the overhead for the moment.

I'm also going to futz around with trying to turn the driver into a VIB, and keep scouring the other virtualization forums.

Last year I decided to replace my aging Linux server with a Home Virtualization Server ("White Box"). Previous work required me to evaluate various virtualization options (Xen, ESXi, Hyper-V, etc) and I had selected VMware as best of breed for my customer. Thus I decided on 5.5 for my home machine as well.

Procrastination being a good friend (oh, and I got married), I finally got around to this project in May. Wanting a "cutting-edge" system that would last me several years into the future, I purchased an Intel i7-4790S and ASRock Extreme6. Imagine my surprise when I learned that neither one of my two on-board NICs (I218-V and Realtek RTL8111GR) was supported! Further research indicated that there were no recent Community drivers for these NICs available. The old ones I found all failed. So I purchased the Intel EXPI9301 (~$30) just to get ESXi to install.

After more research, I learned that some people were having success building their own drivers for ESXi. I decided to give this a shot, as it appeared fairly straight-forward and I want a second NIC.

I was mistaken. Building an ESXi driver is non-trivial. I found and followed the excellent guide from "trickstarter" and that helped greatly:

So, after much frustration, cursing, late nights, and red wine, I compiled an e1000e driver from the latest SourceForge code that seems to run OK on my Extreme6 / I218-V (see attached).

The usual disclaimers apply: use at your own risk, no warranties implied or given, etc. I'm putting it out there hoping it can help someone. According to the PCI ID file, it should support the following: